Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Pffsss
. . . T! On hearing the threat
from the distant, Thermador cooktop, the girl put down the sleek, black paperback that
she had intended to open in deference to her phone. "Just-kill-me-now. Grandpa's frying catfish," she tweeted to her sister,
while mouthing the same under her breath.

She
loved her grandfather dearly. He
would do anything for her, and there was no end to his inventive soul. Once upon a time, he led over twenty
men in an elite, engineering aviation battalion that fashioned rock crushing apparatus out
of whaling equipment to build experimental, B-29 bomber runways on near
quicksand in India. As for frying
fish these days . . .

Pffsss
. . . T! The oil overspill seared
menacingly. It had overflowed the
rim of the cast iron skillet and slithered into contact with the red-hot burner
coils.

A
dashing, 6' 2", former Disco King, and masculine duplicate of her mother
sauntered into the den.
"Uncle Clay, grandpa's frying fish," the young woman told him
in a rushed, hushed voice. She
rose to follow him as he passed her by, headed through the swinging door toward
the sizzle in mutual, expressionless anticipation.

The
two entered the kitchen just in time to see the drippings on the burner blossom
into a bluish red halo around the iron.

Her
uncle exclaimed, "Father! You
have too much oil in there!"
He deftly advanced to his daddy's side, turned off the burner, grabbed an oven mitt, and used
it to slide the skillet off the heat.
Before the patriarch could object, the modest halo burst into flames two
feet high. The girl's uncle and
grandfather stepped back, wide-eyed. She
announced, "That's an oil fire.
I'm going to get the baking soda."

Her
uncle protectively objected, "Get back!" He lunged to open an upper right cabinet and snatched the
iconic, orange tribute to Vulcan—the Roman God of fire—from within. Sparsely sprinkling the Arm &
Hammer Baking Soda onto the flames only caused mild, smoky protest before their
menace prevailed.

The
blaze that had gained strength was otherworldly. There was a presence about the fire—a mesmerizing shape—that
the girl recognized from a recurring dream. It was an elderly and sweet face with kind eyes. On previously describing the genteel lady's
complexion, skin, and features from the dream, her mother had responded,
"That sounds like daddy's mother, your great grandmother. She passed away when you were about
three and half."

The
memory of her mother's words snapped the girl to attention. Fearful of what it foreboded for her
grandfather, she wailed at her uncle, "Give me the box!" Determined to protect his niece, her
uncle used his free hand to further bar her way to both the box and the flames,
while heavy-handedly dumping nearly all of the powder onto the fire with his
other. The powder's weight smote
the mirage and the blaze beneath it to nearly smoke-free nothing.

"Wow,"
her uncle quietly voiced at the instantaneous change and peaceful
aftermath. A moment passed. Then he and her grandfather eyed the
perfect, golden, untouched catfish before helping each other to the toweled
plate and fork to retrieve them.

Whatever, she inwardly thought, observing their
trance-like pull to the food. The girl misinterpreted her
uncle's protection as bravado before shaking her head and turning back toward
the den. Then she dismissed the
mirage as commonplace. After
finally lounging back down onto the sofa, she retrieved the slender volume to
resume reading . . .